History

Why a graph

In other browsers each tab has a list you walk with Back and Forward. Go back two pages and click a different link, and the two pages that were ahead of you are gone from the list.

Lightning does not drop them. Every page a tab shows is added to that tab's trail, in order, with how you got there. Going back is recorded too, as a step that returns to an earlier page. Nothing is removed.

An example. You search, open a result, go back, and open another result:

Step	Other browsers' list	Lightning's trail
Search	Search	Search
Open result A	Search, A	Search → A
Back	Search, A	Search → A → back to Search
Open result B	Search, B (A is gone)	Search → A → back to Search → B

What is recorded

• A lane for each tab, starting at the first page it showed.
• A node for each page, with its title, address and time.
• An edge saying how the page was reached: a link, the address bar, a form, back, forward, a step inside the same page (as single-page sites do), or a restore.
• Where a tab came from. A tab opened from a link starts its lane at the page the link was on.

The browser's own pages, such as Settings, are not recorded. Nor is anything in an incognito window.

The History page

Ctrl+H opens it. It shows your tabs' lanes side by side, newest at the top, with lines where one tab opened another.

• Search matches titles and addresses.
• Click a node to open that page.
• A tab's own trail: right-click a tab in the panel and choose Show this tab's trail.
• Delete removes the selected pages, a day, or everything.

Sessions

When the browser closes, the tabs that were open are remembered. Next time it opens them again, each at the page it was on. Back on a restored tab keeps going, into the pages from the session before.

Settings ▸ On startup chooses between restoring the last session and starting with a new tab.

Clearing

Settings ▸ Clear browsing data clears history for the last hour, day, week, four weeks or all time. Cookies and cached files can be cleared too, but only all at once.